The Flag Plant: Nine Years of One Name
Every year since 2017 I've picked one rookie before the season and lived with it. Here is every call, what happened, and an honest grade on each.
The habit started with a running back I couldn't stop watching.
That was 2017. I was three seasons into running the same league, and I'd noticed something about the way people talk about rookies in August: everybody has a list, and nobody has a name. Sleeper lists are safe. You can put eight guys on one, hit on two, and call it a good year. A single name is different. If you say one player, out loud, before he's taken a snap, you're either right or you're not, and everybody remembers which.
So I started saying one name. I've done it every year since, with one gap, and I've never gone back and softened a call after the fact. What follows is the whole record, including the ones I'd rather not talk about.
The rule
One rookie. Called before Week 1. Usually a running back, because that's the position where a rookie can walk into a full workload and where my eye is best. The call comes from film first — something I see in how a player moves that I don't think the consensus has priced — and then from situation. It does not come from a spreadsheet, and this is the one place on this site where it isn't supposed to.
Graded in January. Hit, push, or miss. No partial credit for "well, if he'd stayed healthy."
The record
2017 — Dalvin Cook, Minnesota
Also: Leonard Fournette, Jacksonville. The first year I hadn't learned to pick only one yet.
What happened: Cook opened as the starter, ran for 354 yards in four games, and tore his ACL in Week 4. Fournette played thirteen games, ran for 1,040 yards and 9 touchdowns, caught 36 passes, and was the sixth-best back in half-PPR points per game.
Grade: Cook, incomplete — the read was right and the season ended before it could prove anything, which is the risk with every one of these. Fournette, hit.
2018 — No call
2019 — David Montgomery, Chicago
What happened: 242 carries, 889 yards, 6 touchdowns, 25 catches. Started from Week 1 and held the job all year, but the Bears' offense was a slog and the ceiling never showed up. Finished RB25 in half-PPR points, 32nd per game.
Grade: Push. He was exactly the player I thought he was in an offense that couldn't use him. The volume was there; the points weren't. I've thought about this one a lot, because it's the year I learned the environment matters as much as the back.
2020 — Antonio Gibson, Washington
What happened: A college receiver converted to running back, going in the double-digit rounds. 795 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns in 14 games, plus 36 catches. The 15th-best back in half-PPR points per game, RB12 in total, as a rookie who'd been a wideout eight months earlier.
Grade: Hit. This is the one that made me trust the process. Nobody had him. The film said the ball-carrier instincts were already there; the situation said Washington had nobody else. Both were right.
2021 — Javonte Williams, Denver
What happened: 903 rushing yards, 4 rushing touchdowns, 43 catches for 316 yards and 3 more scores. Every bit as good as I thought on tape — and stuck in a near-even split with Melvin Gordon all season. Finished RB17 in half-PPR points, 26th per game.
Grade: Push. The talent evaluation was correct. The workload call was not. I underweighted how much Denver would keep leaning on Gordon, and the split capped a back who should have been top-10.
2022 — Kenneth Walker III, Seattle
What happened: Opened the year behind Rashaad Penny, took over in Week 5 after Penny's injury, and ran for 1,050 yards and 9 touchdowns in 15 games — the 14th-best back in half-PPR points per game. Second in Offensive Rookie of the Year voting.
Grade: Hit. The first month was ugly and there were texts. Then the job opened and he was exactly who the film said he was. This one taught me to hold the call through a slow start — which is relevant to this year.
2023 — Jahmyr Gibbs, Detroit
What happened: 945 rushing yards, 10 rushing touchdowns, 52 catches for 316 yards and another score, in a rotation with David Montgomery. RB10 in half-PPR points and 11th per game, in a season where he never had the backfield to himself.
Grade: Hit. The easiest one to defend in hindsight, which is exactly why it's worth remembering that in August 2023 the consensus had him well behind Bijan Robinson and worried about the Montgomery split. The split happened. It didn't matter.
2024 — Brock Bowers, Las Vegas
What happened: The first year I planted a flag on a tight end. 112 catches — a rookie record at any position — for 1,194 yards and 5 touchdowns, on a bad team with a rotating quarterback. The TE1 in half-PPR points; only George Kittle, in two fewer games, scored more per game.
Grade: Hit. I broke my own "usually a running back" rule because the film didn't look like any tight end I'd watched. If there's a call on this list I'd point to as the reason to trust the eye over the position, it's this one.
2025 — TreVeyon Henderson, New England
What happened: 180 carries for 911 yards and 9 rushing touchdowns, 35 catches for 221 yards, all 17 games. The Patriots went to the Super Bowl. Henderson split the backfield close to evenly with Rhamondre Stevenson all year and finished as the 24th back in half-PPR points per game, RB19 in total.
Grade: Push. Same lesson as Javonte, four years later: I got the player right and the share wrong. Nine rushing touchdowns as a rookie in a committee is a real season. It isn't the season I called.
What the record says
Nine calls over nine years, counting Fournette. By my grading: five hits, three pushes, one incomplete.
The hits have something in common, and it isn't the film. Gibson, Walker, Gibbs and Bowers all walked into situations where the volume was either already open or about to be. The pushes — Montgomery, Javonte, Henderson — were all good reads on the player in backfields that stayed shared or offenses that couldn't score. The film has been right more often than not. The share has been the miss.
That's worth saying plainly, because it's the whole shape of this year's call. Seattle vacated 456 touches. The depth behind the rookie is an undrafted back with 25 career carries. The mistake I've made three times is the one this situation makes hardest to make.
The rest of the story
The 2026 call is Jadarian Price. It's on the record now, before Week 1, the same as the other nine. I'll grade it in January the same way — hit, push, or miss — and it'll go on this page either way.